REVIEWS

To request a book for review, please send an email to osandu@partner.eso.org stating your affiliation, where the review will appear and your full address for shipping.

"In addition to showing glorious photos, Schilling and Christensen explain the origins of the European Southern Observatory and the development of the different sets of telescopes that dot the Andean peaks. (...) An appendix lists and maps all of the telescopes along with technical specifications and major science goals. Cutely, they are listed in order of decreasing primary mirror diameter, from the 39.3-meter European Extremely Large Telescope down to a pair of 20-centimeter Celestron 'scopes used to perform optical followup of gamma-ray bursts in the 1980s. A 25-centimeter robotic telescope is still in use there for the same purpose." (Emily Lakdawalla, The Planetary Society Blog, 18 August 2013)

"The achievements of ESO are well celebrated by this splendid book, and the price makes it a possible birthday present for your favourite astronomer." (The Observatory Magazine, 1 June 2013)

"Leave the book on your coffee table, certainly, but read it first and come back to it regularly. It's an intelligent, inspiring celebration of a great European scientific adventure." (Astronomy Now, 1 March 2013)

"Images of incredible beauty, all breathtaking. A captivating DVD. 50 years of history from an observatory (...) which has accomplished unparalleled technical achievements and fascinating astronomical discoveries. These are already enough reasons to make the price of the book, which can also be downloaded as pdf, worthy (34.90 euros)." (Pierre Paquette, Magazine Astronomie-Québec May-June 2013, Full review in French)

"To celebrate (ESO's 50th anniversary), the most beautiful images from the ESO-archives have been collected in this thick coffee-table book. Together with the enclosed DVD, it forms a beautiful collection which offers the reader a colourful peek behind the scences of ESO’s mission to explore the southern sky." (NWT Magazine, December 2012, in Dutch).

"We get the story behind the famous telescopes, all from planning to how they were built and how they are currently used to explore the universe. The reader gets a glimpse into the challenges of building telescopes at that altitude and with such extreme precision. We also get a picture of researchers living at ESO. The book is a description of the results that can achieve a scientific collaboration between European states. (...) The book is also written for a general audience and is therefore easy to read." “The book, richly illustrated with 300 of ESO's best pictures... ESO has produced a lavish and beautiful book.” (Kari Aartojärvi, Populär Astronomi nr 2012/4, original text in Swedish)

"ESO, in my eyes, has the world's leading press service in astronomy and aerospace. This is visible both in the presentation, imagery and animations of this movie" (Movie review, Astronomi magazine, December 2012, in Norwegian)

"An excellent and detailed source of information about the European Southern Observatory and its achievements" (spacepage.be, September 2012, in Dutch)

"Appendix 1 gives a full detailed list of all the telescopes used by ESO between 1962 and 2012." (Philip Corneille for magazines Heelal and Guidestar, in Dutch)

“ESO produced a lavishly illustrated book and a professionally-made movie documenting its history and future plans including the E-ELT and ALMA. Both of these

"Europe to the Stars" productions are masterpieces.” (astro.uni-bonn.de, October 2012, Pavel Kroupa and Nadya Ben Bekhti)

“Europe to the Stars, a coffee-table book featuring incredible images of telescopes and space.” (wired.com, January 2012, Adam Mann.)

“ESO presents for its 50th Birthday this lavishly illustrated book with the most spectacular pictures of its gigantic archive. In addition to panoramic views of the telescopes and the observation of objects in outer space it also provides an insightful view behind the scenes of the European Southern Observatory and its complex instruments.” (Physik Journal 11, November 2012, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

“Beautifully produced, Europe to the Stars tells the story of how dreams of giant telescopes became a reality and covers many of the exciting discoveries made at La Silla and Paranal.” (skyatnightmagazine.com, January 2013, Hazel Muir)

“The coffee-table book... contains 300 spectacular hand-picked images... tells a story of aspiration, inspiration and discovery... offering a unique insight into the science of astronomy.” (Phys.org, October 2012)